Rachel Maddow Drops a Bomb on ‘Late Show’

This TVNewser was at the Ed Sullivan Theater Monday afternoon for the taping of “Late Show with David Letterman.” Letterman spent two segments with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow talking about her new book, “Drift” which comes out today, as well as her recent coverage of nukes. During the commercial break, and for a minute or so after the interview, Letterman and Maddow chatted as Letterman’s aides prepped him for the next segment with actor Timothy Olyphant. Interestingly, several parts of the monologue which we saw as an audience did not make it into the final show last night. Letterman delivered several one-liners on the heart transplant surgery of former VP Dick Cheney, including: “He’ll be back at the beach waterboarding in no time.” It didn’t make the cut.

There was a also a gag which included Jamie Gangel’s interview with Cheney on the “Today” show last summer. Letterman staffers did some creative graphic design showing the mechanical inner workings of Cheney’s chest cavity. That didn’t make the cut either. Another bit, a fake one from CNN, did make the final show. “Footage from the operating room,” Letterman called it, showing a clip from a “Frankenstein” movie.

Both of Maddow’s segments made the broadcast. And one thing we didn’t notice in the theater, but did watching the show last night: Maddow’s nervous jacket-fixing habit. Watch after the jump: